Ingrid at Crooked Timber writes a blog post about the book, What Children Need. The author, Jane Waldfogel, discusses the needs of children with two working parents. I'm not sure if the author compares children with two working parents and children with one working parent. I'll have to check the book out.
I also need to check the book out, because I also can't figure out how she created a valid study. There are so many variables to consider — how much both parents work, how stressful their jobs are, the quality of childcare, the availability of help from the extended family, how crazy the parents are, the amount of commute time. I also can't figure out how does she determine the well-being of the child — grades in school, aggression levels, overall happiness levels, future success.
Over the years, I've observed hundreds of families. I've watched nannies with babies at the playground. I've watched kids at various types of daycare, because my kids have sampled many. While there are a gazillion variables, I think I can make some very unscientific observations.
The mental status of the parents is more important than their work status. Family A has two working parents. They work locally and can get their kids from Aftercare fairly quickly. However, the parents fight all the time. The fight in front of the kids about details of the husband's infidelities. One of the kids is so freaked out about this fighting that he isn't sleeping at night. He's been pouring out his heart to Jonah, who's a caretaking soul, and had to leave the classroom last week, because he couldn't stop blinking. The kid is miserable, but the problem is the fighting not his parents' employment. In fact, it is probably good for him to spend lots of time away from his parents.
Kids who have attentive parents have a huge advantage. Family B has one tween daughter (having just one kid makes things easier, too). They both work, but their minds are always with their girl. The father is able to get home by 5:30, early enough to get her to soccer and to help her with homework. As soon as school is out, the mother texts the daughter to make sure she walks right home and does her homework. The mother texts the neighbors to make sure the daughter is indeed at home. If the girl gets anything less an A on a test, the mother is immediately e-mailing the teacher to get her extra help. The parents don't work or talk about work or worry about work when they get home. They turn it off. That girl is happy and well adjusted.
Work pressures vary, and two demanding jobs can mean trouble. Family C has two working parents who live and breathe their jobs. They don't have any extended family support. To save money, they put their son in an overcrowded unlicensed home daycare setting. He's in the daycare for fifty to sixty hours a week starting when he's six months old. The woman who watches him can't give him that much attention, because she's watching nine other children. The parents are stressed out messes when they pick him up, because they need to be spending even more time at their jobs to advance. They snap at the kid for being slow about getting his backpack and immediately get on e-mail when they get home.
I agree with many of the conclusions that Ingrid discusses in her blog post at Crooked Timber. Children need parents who are able to shut off work when they get home. They need parents who aren't constantly stressed out. They need stability. They need non-crazy parents who are involved even if they aren't there. They need good quality, affordable daycare. They need a network of people around them – smart babysitters, caring neighbors, doting grandmas.
Smart public policy can address many of these needs. It's smart politics to frame these reforms in terms of children's needs, rather than work-family balance. That's why research like this is so important. I have to get my hands on the book.
Apt. 11d 
The girl whose parents email the teacher every time she gets less than an A seems likely to have an issue or two at some point. But I get your point that parents can be attentive and available despite their jobs.
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Some of the comments on that post are quite interesting. The problem with all such recommendations are that kids and families are often quite unique. I can look at my own two kids for evidence of that. The first does not do well in unstructured time. The second structures her own time without my help at all.
Also, I can vouch for the “mental state of the parent” argument and the “two demanding jobs” issue. Both were true for me. Being in a two demanding jobs situation completely stressed me out so that I could not be a good parent. Really. Just couldn’t. I’m certain my kids suffered a little when I was breaking down in tears every night after work. Neither Mr. Geeky nor I could shut work down. He, because of the incredible demands. Me, because of bringing the politics home with me and a little actual work. Not really good. Luckily, we changed that situation. But not everyone has that luxury.
And maybe it’s good to frame this stuff in terms of helping kids, but I know an awful lot of people who don’t want to support kids at all. I watch them in the voting booth voting down funding for education and other kid-related programs. (Why people talk to me about how they voted is beyond me.) Either they feel like they already raised their kids and don’t need to contribute anymore or they don’t have kids and don’t feel it’s their responsibility to provide anything for their well-being.
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“Children need parents who are able to shut off work when they get home. They need parents who aren’t constantly stressed out. They need stability. They need non-crazy parents who are involved even if they aren’t there. They need good quality, affordable daycare. They need a network of people around them – smart babysitters, caring neighbors, doting grandmas.”
Except for maybe–maybe–the fifth sentence, this entire list seems to exemplify the couplet:
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
The part which kings or laws can cause or cure.
I mean, how would public policy produce doting grandmas? My daughter’s grandmothers are both dead, and even the smartest poli sci grad can’t cure that.
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“…but I know an awful lot of people who don’t want to support kids at all.”
Plus, there are people who really, really hate kids, and/or find it difficult to wrap their minds around the fact that 1) they themselves used to be children and 2) they have to share airplanes, stores, coffee shops, and other public spaces with children.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/11/24/screamers_on_a.html
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Plus, there are people who really, really hate kids, and/or find it difficult to wrap their minds around the fact that 1) they themselves used to be children and 2) they have to share airplanes, stores, coffee shops, and other public spaces with children.
You get much less of that as a father out with the kid than as a mother. My wife complains about dirty looks and comments she’ll get when our son is doing anything more than chatting quietly. I’ve never experienced it.
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“Children need parents who are able to shut off work when they get home. Children need parents who are able to shut off work when they get home.”
And that’s supposed to happen for an academic how? From September 1 to May 22, I’m in Teaching World 24-7.
What I do is I talk about my stress with the kids so they know that sometimes I have a lot of work to do and papers to grade and they can’t have all my attention. I also try to give them a good hour’s worth of attention when they come home at 3, then after that the level of attention is negotiable.
I am in frequent e-mail contact with my son’s teacher but that’s because I’m trying to figure out this AS thing and because the teacher lets me e-mail her without shutting me down. 🙂 I avoid my daughter’s teacher because I’m not all that crazy about her.
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We can’t do anything about poor old grandma, but here are some concrete policies that could be put in place in the workplace or by governments:
American workplaces cannot expect that workers work more than 35 hours per week. The lights should be turned out in offices after 6:00. Nobody should be denied a promotion, because they leave the office at 5:30. Government should subsidize good daycare settings. Daycare workers should be paid better. There should be smaller ratios of daycare workers to children. Schools need to offer better Aftercare programs for grade school kids. Schools should offer parenting classes. There needs to be more opportunities for part-time labor. Health care should not be tied to employment. All schools should improve, so parents aren’t forced to buy expensive homes in communities with good schools and, thus, requiring crazy jobs to pay the mortgage. I’m just getting started. Should I go on?
Of course, y81, there’s is a limit to what public policy can do here. Our culture has to get its priorities in order. We need to be in a society that values family, rather than materialism and self-promotion. We need to be in a society that reaches out to others in the community and isn’t so individualistic. We have to be willing to pay more in taxes to help other people’s children.
We probably need to change the culture before there can be any change in policy, but there are policy solutions, I think.
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But, Wendy, you’re home with your kids at 3. There are parents who get home from work at 7 or 8 and then keep on working.
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True. I feel like kids need some attention every day, but not all my attention every day. When I come home late because I have meetings (like, tomorrow) I will put aside the work sooner if I can.
Of course, then I hang out at work and think about them all day by posting here and talking about them. I also just retyped a writing assignment E did and posted it on my LJ. Maybe I’ll go cut and paste it and put it on my OP blog.
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Even inattentive attention must be good, right? The kind where everyone’s hanging out and nodding at each other some of the time? Better, I think, than hovering.
Honestly I have trouble seeing where businesses could conform to the rules you suggest, Laura. I honestly am not as great a worker because I go home before 5:00–I can’t grab emergency projects, for example. That doesn’t make me a stressed out worker, but I am a bit of a mommy-track worker, I suppose. But a pretty well-treated and compensated one.
Amy, I’ve seen a lot of childfree vitriol before but that was jaw-dropping. “Your kid’s rights stop where my discomfort begins?” The mind reels.
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Of all the items on Laura’s list, these seemed the most realistic:
“Health care should not be tied to employment.”
I think that one is going to happen within the next five years.
“All schools should improve, so parents aren’t forced to buy expensive homes in communities with good schools and, thus, requiring crazy jobs to pay the mortgage.”
I don’t think all schools are going to improve, but I think that housing is going to continue to get cheaper and cheaper, particularly as tax credits phase out and more foreclosures hit the market (there’s a lot of talk that lenders are artificially limiting the number of foreclosures for sale–some houses have been in the pipeline for literally years at this point). At the peak, US house prices were at something like 5X yearly income. We are getting close to 4X income, but 3X income is more in line with historic norms.
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“I mean, how would public policy produce doting grandmas?”
Actually, I’d bet that Medicare and Social Security have done an awful lot to produce doting grandmas. There’s no guarantee of dotification, but improved financial security and health have done more to make sure that there were more grandmas around, and also plenty to ensure that their material circumstances were good enough that they could worry about doting or not.
I will add, perhaps gratuitously, that one political party fought both of these improvements tooth and nail.
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“Amy, I’ve seen a lot of childfree vitriol before but that was jaw-dropping. “Your kid’s rights stop where my discomfort begins?” The mind reels.”
Yeah. I especially like the multiple suggestions to drive instead, as if several days of cross-country travel would be better for the 2-year-old.
Maybe the airlines need to rent out noise-cancelling earphones?
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Maybe the airlines need to rent out noise-cancelling earphones?
Really, I’m willing to stop my little one from kicking the seats, prevent objects from being tossed, and do my best to keep him from screaming (who doesn’t want to scream on an airplane from time to time). Beyond that, I’m happy to invite anyone complaining to shove the in-flight magazine up their ass.
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“I will add, perhaps gratuitously, that one political party fought both of these improvements tooth and nail.”
I’d also note that increased female employment lessens the number of doting grandmas, which pushes back in the opposite direction. Similarly, lower income tends to promote multi-generational living, while higher income allows for separate households.
The famously doting Russian grandma has a very low retirement age, a very small income, so-so medical care, and often shares a home with the younger generation.
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Actually, I’d bet that Medicare and Social Security have done an awful lot to produce doting grandmas.
At 14.75% of my income (and growing) (and no deductions). Giving money to the elderly is a very, very inefficient method of helping the young. (And, frankly, I’m not at all happy that Social Security isn’t means tested.)
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This childless doting aunt has never had problems with kids on airplanes — they don’t tend to a) recline their seat backs into my lap or b) stuff their carry-on into the overhead bin above my row, then stroll to their seat, 11 rows farther back.
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This is like a textbook discussion of “the personal IS political.” If I didn’t have to worry about my healthcare premiums skyrocketing as my salary slumps, I would be a less stressed out parent. If I had someone to pick up the “second shift” of drycleaning, grocery store, post office, veternarian, etc., I would be a less stressed out parent. If there were a more solid support network for parents (instead of assuming that everyone has a large extended family living in the same town, willing to help out), I would be a less stressed out parent. Some problems are cultural (second shift, I’m worried I’ll get hauled in before CFS for letting my kid walk to school) but others are legal and political (health care, the economy, etc.)
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It’s really hard. Your point about the stressed-out parents comes dangerously close to my life.
The “ideal worker” seems to be one who thinks about work 24/7 (not really, but that seems to be the expectation) and the “ideal parent” doesn’t think about work at all while with the kids.
And in our family it’s definitely the woman who lets work suffer a bit.
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“second shift, I’m worried I’ll get hauled in before CFS for letting my kid walk to school”
AAaagggghhhhh. I know what you mean, but I hate that we have become this society.
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“Giving money to the elderly is a very, very inefficient method of helping the young.”
Good thing that’s not the primary purpose, eh?
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Good comments, Miranda et al.
I can write knowledgeably about the stressed out parent, but that’s been me at different points in the past ten years. To be fair, I’m a crazy perfectionist and I put way too much time into my work. I could have benefited from a chill pill. But there have been many times when the problem was the lack of childcare and mountainous responsibilities. Was I a patient, caring, sensitive parent when I was in over my head? No.
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“Good thing that’s not the primary purpose, eh?”
Ripping off baby boomers?
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Waldfogel’s book is really an incredibly comprehensive and yet nuanced and accessible description of what we know about what children need, from parents and policymakers, at different stages of childhood. She is super-sensitive (as a lot of studies are) to the fact that slight differences in context can make for big differences in what is needed, and she also draws (as I remember it) only on US-based studies (although she spends a lot of time in the UK, and has been involved in the drive to reduce child poverty there, which is the subject of her next book, coming out in the spring). Really, its essential, and not at all difficult, reading.
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Thanks, Harry and Ingrid, for calling attention to this book. I’m itching to check it out. Does she give concrete recommendations about hours in daycare, ratio of daycare workers to kids, level of parental attention and all that?
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I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky
lovechildcare that I crave!LikeLike